Large numbers of these eagles breed in the vicinity of Hamadān.[132] I have trained nestlings, but never with success: they are poor performers on the wing. The wild-caught bird is superior in every way. Still I found this species swifter and more tractable than any other kind of eagle.
The Sār (or Buzzard).—Another kind of eagle is the buzzard,[133] of which there are two common species. In the first the general colouring of the plumage is very dark without spot or marking: the feet and cere are a deep orange yellow. The plumage of the second is tawny. Both species are ill-conditioned and villainous by nature. Their prey is rats, mice, frogs, lizards, and wounded or sickly birds. When they dare, they rob their more weakly neighbours. They are too mean-spirited for the purposes of falconry.
FOOTNOTES:
[121] ʿUqāb Ar., or qara-qush T. The latter word properly means “black bird of prey,” and is a term specially applied to the Golden Eagle.
[122] Sār, vide note [133], page 32.
[123] ʿUqāb-i māh-dum, “moon-tailed eagle.” Can this be Pallas’s sea eagle? The author does not mention that it is found in the vicinity of water.
[124] Barra; properly a lamb. The author elsewhere uses this word for the fawn of the “ravine-deer.”
[125] ʿUqāb-i ā,īna-lī. Ā,īna means “mirror.”
[126] ʿUqāb-i qurbāqa-chī; būq-k͟hura. Qurbāqa and bāqa are both Turki names for a frog. Būq T. is “ordure,” and figuratively anything filthy. The Spotted Eagle (Aquila nævia) feeds largely on frogs.
[127] The length of the female goshawk is said to be 22 to 26 inches: of the male 18 to 21 inches. There is in Persia a species of small eagle or hawk-eagle that always hunts in pairs and that is known to Persians by the name of Du-Barādarān or “The Two Brothers.” The Dūbarār of the author is perhaps a corruption of Du-Barādarān. In the Ḥāyatu ’l-Ḥaywān, the Arab name of the latter is said to be Zumaj, a word that occurs in old Arabic and Persian MSS. on falconry.